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AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BY 



THOMAS D. SAMFORD 




UPON THE OCCASION OF A 

PATRIOTIC DEMONSTRATION 
AT SELMA, ALABAMA 

APRIL 23, 1917. 






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AN ADDRESS 

Delivered by Hon. Thos. D. Samford, at Selma, 

Alabama, Upon the Occasion of a Patriotic 

Demonstration on April 23rd, 1917. 



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I appreciate very much the invitation which brings me here 
today. ' 

I had about made up my mind to cease trying to make public 
addresses. I am sure many hundreds of good people have 
discovered long ago, that my talent, if I have any, is along 
other lines. 

And yet, I could not resist the desire to come to this beautiful 
city and speak to this splendid people once again. 

In all the communities of this great nation I doubt if there 
is a higher or purer type of American citizenship than is 
found right here in the heart of the "Black Belt" of Alabama. 
I would to God that every part of this mighty nation now was 
peopled with just such men and women as you are. 

I congratulate you on this magnificent demonstration and the 
patriotic spirit which is manifested here today. You do honor 
to yourselves and you set a commendable example for other 
cities and communities to follow. 

Every city and every town and hamlet in all this land should 
sound the bugle and call together the people that they may 
know and fully understand that every person, male and female, 
married and single, old and young, yes, black and white, has 
a patriotic duty to perform, and some part to take in this great 
hour of our nation's peril. 

Each of you may not be able to shoulder a rifle and march 
to battle. It is very probable you can not enlist as a soldier; 
but there is a part for you and a part for me, and every one 
should quickly learn what contribution he or she can make, 
and make it quickly, make it cheerfully and make it fully. 
And if there are any drones or traitors, the sooner the govern- 
ment finds it out, the better for the nation. 

It is entirely unnecessary if, indeed, it is not useless for me 
to undertake to discuss the causes which led up to this war. 
Such discussion is sometimes now not only worse than useless, 
but harmful. 

I commend to you and to the people of this country and of 



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the world the masterful address of the President to Congress. 
It is the Alpha and the Omega of the argument concerning the 
issues involved. It can neither be added to nor taken from. 
Every man, woman and child in America should read it and 
re-read it; and it should be publicly proclaimed from every 
rostrum and pulpit in the republic. No wonder the debates 
in Congress were tame after its delivery. It is a solemn and 
weighty document, and generations unborn, in this and other 
lands, will read it to their children and to their children's 
children, as they teach them with pride of America's contribu- 
tion to human freedom and world-wide democracy. 

So far as I am concerned, I have felt for months that we 
have had abundant cause for war with Germany ever since the 
Lusitania went down with its hundreds of helpless and inno- 
cent men, women and children. A most cruel and murderous 
slaughter. I can almost hear the screams of mothers and the 
cries of suckling infants as they face their awful doom. 

Since that time, one act after another, in shocking disregard 
of every friendly profession and of the highest rights and 
principles that we hold dear as a nation, Germany has co- 
mitted knowingly and wilfully. 

Hardly could we recover from the humiliating shock of one 
such incident before another of like kind was committed — not 
only destruction of property, but a ruthless and cruel disregard 
of the lives of our people. 

Finally, as if to add humiliating insult to irreparable injury, 
the Imperial German Government, in effect, serves notice on 
this nation: keep your people at home; dare not to sail your 
ships on the high_seas; congest your harbors with your vessels; 
paralize every artery of your commerce; stop your wheels of 
industry; let your wheat and your corn decay in your graneries 
and your cotton rot in your warehouses; close your mines and 
let your people fold their hands in idleness, until the Imperial 
German Government sees fit to again permit your citizens to 
sail the seas with safety. All of this is what the Kaiser's edict 
means. 

But the depths of perfidy were not reached in this dicta- 
torial decree. While yet professing friendship for our nation, 
which had harbored and sheltered and fed and prospered 
hundreds of thousands of her poor people, the Imperial German 
Government employed thousands of spies and spent millions 
of dollars in efforts to undermine our institutions and prepare 
for attacks, insidious and otherwise. 

And, finally, the discovery of which revealing the infamous 
purpose of every outward act which had hitherto been com- 
mitted, her emissaries and officials in high position, while 



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enjoying the courtesies and honors and protection of this 
Republic and this people, were secretly plotting not only to 
incite rebellion in our own midst, but to induce Mexico and 
Japan to join in war against our country. 

All this our people, an honorable, peaceable, high-minded, 
frank and candid people, can scarcely understand, and some 
of them are slow to believe. But I have not a doubt in my mind, 
that if we had continued to submit to the further humiliation 
and dictation by Germany and her imperial ruler, and had not 
recognized the state of war which already existed, if the 
German armies should be victorious over the allies, that the 
very next move of the Prussian autocracy would be to bom- 
bard our coast cities and compel this nation to pay the expense 
of the Teutonic governmerrtin this war. 

But, alas, for Germany^atience of our President has been 
exhausted, and our people, peacable as they are and slow to 
wrath, have awakened from their dreams of pacification and 
safely to realize that our nation is basely dishonored, our 
liberty imperiled, our rights ignored and ruthlessly trampled 
upon and that DEMOCRACY against AUTOCRACY is the world 
issue, and that we must fight or confess ourselves a nation of 
cowards and unworthy of our legacy of freemen. 

It is a dangerous thing to goad a man into a fight. The 
imperious potentate of Prussia has aroused the young giant of 
the West, and has utterly destroyed the last hope of Teutonic 
success, in this mighty struggle. 

There are many things worse than war, just as there are 
many things worse than death. 

Rather than disgrace the name of my honorable family and 
of my sainted father, I would prefer to die. I would rather 
see my son shrouded before me for his buriel, than to see him 
in health headed for a felon's cell. 

For the honored name of your mother you would gladly 
fight till every drop of blood in your veins was shed in her 
defense. Who could stand serenely by and witness an alien 
plot against the honor of his home and defiantly take the life 
of his children? I would rather suffer ten thousand deaths. 
Every impulse of my nature revolts at the thought of living 
in the face of a foe who had sought to despoil my home. I 
would not be worthy the name of father or husband or son 
should I hold life dearer than these things. 

So, I say, no man is worthy the name of citizen of any 
government that protects him and shields him and his dear 
ones, unless he is willing to fight for and, if need be, to die 
for his country. 

War is not an unmixed evil. Valuable experience and bene- 



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fits can come and do come from its lessons in courage and 
bravery, economy and frugality, industry and thrift, sacrifice 
and hardships, physical endurance and prowess, obedience 
and prayer; and in freedom from ease and luxury and idleness, 
self-indulgence lust and decay. 

May God deliver this nation from that awful curse that too 
often comes from the accumulation of a super-abundance of 
wealth which breeds immorality, luxury, idleness and crime; 
that time when as a nation we forget God and his goodness 
and his mercy— the sustaining faith of our fathers and the 
fundamental qualities of simple life. 

"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey 
Where wealth accumulates and men decay." 

May be, a first class war will tend to eliminate a lot of 
hyphens from among our people. And when we have emerged 
from the fiery trials of battle we will have a more distinctive 
type of citizenship than the conglomerate components in some 
sections seem to indicate we have today. 

But it is not to justify war for any or all of these reasons 
that I speak. 

I forget not the hardships and privations and sacrifice and 
suffering and desolation and devastation that go hand in hand 
with and follow in the wake of war. I am not deaf to the 
wails of the widow and the cries of the orphan, nor to the 
agony of the heart broken mother as she feeds her first born 
into the maw of this monstrous demon. 

I am not unmindful of the history of the past, how its pages 
are written with the blood of the best and bravest men of every 
land and clime; and how every river on every continent has 
at some time run red with human blood. 

This is the saddest time, as a citizen, I have ever had to come 
upon me. I have been awfully oppressed since the first 
moment I realized that we had at last been drawn into this 
whirlpool of world-wide war. 

I can see those near and dear to me as they don their suits 
of khaki and shoulder their muskets and march away perhaps 
never to return. 

I can picture my own son as he unfolds the arm of his 
precious mother from about his neck and leaves her in a flood 
of tears, as he goes forth in answer to the call of his country. 

I have gotten my own consent, if my country needs the 
service of such as I at the front, to place myself upon her 
alter. Life is sweet to me, but dear as are the ruddy drops 
that gather about this sad heart, I can conceive of no greater 
joy, no higher privilege, than to shed it in defense of my 
country's honor and for oppressed humanity. 



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So, T repeat, my friends and countrymen, with all of its 
horrors and privations and suffering; with all of its cost in 
money and human lives, worse things can befall a nation than 
to go to war. One is, like a nation of cravens and cowards to 
submit to the indignities and humiliations and dictations 
imposed upon us by the arrogant head of a house of royal 
princes crazy for conquest and lust for power. 

But what I think and what I have to say about this subject 
matters very little. If I can, however, make any contribution, 
ever so small, to my country's cause by speaking to the people, 
or otherwise, I am proud to do so. 

But there are many bigger and better qualified men than I 
who are directing the affairs of our nation in this great crisis, 
and we look to them for guidance and leadership. 

I care not how stormy the sea nor how rough the sailing, 
above the fogs and above the clouds and above the storms that 
obscure the vision of ordinary men, stands WOODROW 
WILSON at the helm, and I believe with a ll the faith of mv 
soul, he was sent of God for such a time as this . He is the 
foremost statesman in the annals of time, and" the greatest 
exponent and expounder of the principles of world-wide de- 
mocracy who has ever lived. I rejoice in his unexampled 
patience during these long months and years of "watchful 
waiting" under the greatest strain and the severest trial. I 
admire beyond any measure of human expression his scholarly 
attainments, profoundness of thought, his tenacity of purpose, 
his wonderful grasp of world problems, his marvelous prophetic 
vision and his absolute consecration to duty. But I glory most 
of all in his calm courage and fortitude in this supreme hour 
of peril to our nation's honor and prestige and to his response 
to the call of humanity and bleeding liberty and freedom all 
over the world. He is no trickster. He stoops to none of 
the arts of the demagogue nor to the dubious way of diplo- 
macy. He fights the battle fairly and squarely and appeals to 
the conscience of humanity. He deals above the table, if you 
know what that means. He plays the game with the hand he 
has. He is no "four-flusher," and is never caught with a 
"bob-tail straight." When he is called, he lays down a 
"straight flush." 

He sees his duty, a dead sure thing; and he dares tp do 
right regardless of the consequences. He has faith in God and 
he has great faith in mankind. 

Almost sublime in his loneliness, he has born the burdens 
of his people during the most perilous period of our nation's 
history. He towers above the ordinary statesmen like the 






pyramid of Gizeh above the desert; and he has the praye rs 
a nd confidence of every tr ue American citizen. 
W 'I wish I had time to talk To you along some practical lines, 
as to how every one can do his or her part as a patriot at 
this time. 

I have heard so much talk during my life time about the 
duty the government owes to its people till at times I grow 
dangerously near nauseation on a lot of such demagogil£$r*%^ 
for much of it is pure stereotyped political phraseology. The 
government does owe a great duty to the people; but it is time 
now that every patriot should preach something of the duty the 
people owe to the government. 

Every young man should volunteer his service. This is a 
matter of course, for if he does not, he will be a subject of 
conscription, and ought to be. I mean every ablebodied 
young man within the prescribed military ages. We must 
furnish an army. We will furnish an army. But the President 
has made it plain, also, and has emphasized the duty of every 
man, woman and child to practice economy and frugality and 
to be a producer of some of the things which are absolutely, 
necessary and demanded for the support of the armies who 
are fighting our battles,, as well as for the comfort and well- 
being of the people at home who are engaged in the tremendous 
tasks of manufacturing and furnishing machinery, munitions 
and the multitudinous things required in the successful pros- 
ecution of a war. 

I imagine the promptness with which Congress passed the 
appropriation of seven billion dollars as the first act of our 
part in this mighty conflict, must have sent consternation to 
the heart of Germany. If the people of the Kaiser's nation 
had any doubt about the part America expected to take in 
aid of world-wide democracy, they received the answer when 
Congress fired that seven billion dollar bomb into their ranks. 

They talk about our dollar diplomacy. I shall never forget 
the thrill that ran through my every nerve center when I sat 
immediately in front of the President and heard him utter 
those epoch making words, as he said: 

"I speak soberly and I hope not unadvisedly when I say: 
the United States will never again seek to gain another foot 
of territory by aggrandizement." 

We fight no wars for conquest. We seek no gain by force of 
arms or at the expense of the rights of humanity. 

We enter this war in defense of our liberty, the maintenance 
of our rights as a free people, and the establishment of the 
honor of our flag and our country among the nations of the 
earth. And since we have entered this mighty conflict, since 



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we have been forced to take a part in its determination, we 
stand for world-wide democracy. 

When the autocrats of this earth are dethroned and cease 
to move men merely as pawns upon a chess board; and the 
people, the sovereigns of every nation, govern themselves, 
then shall we have universal peace and substantial peace, and 
not until then. 

I would not presume to fathom the plans of the Almighty, 
nor would I blaspheme His holy and sacred office by unrigh- 
eously ascribing to Him a part in this world-wide baptism of 
fire. 

But I am mindful of the fact, that the Son of God said 
when He was on the earth: "I come not into this world to 
bring peace, but a sword." I am not sure that I know what 
he meant, but if this conflagration is a part of His mighty 
plan, who can gainsay it? 

The United States is the foremost example of a republican 
form of government in the world today. France and England 
are mighty exponents of democracy. Lesser nations are en- 
joying the same blessings of liberty. Russia has but recently 
thrown off the yoke of autocratic oppression. The revolution 
in China is aimed at the same result. Germany, Austria and 
Turkey are the three most pronounced examples of autocracy 
now left. 

The current of world events during the last half century has 
been towards the establishment of the sovereignty of the 
people in one form or another. 

Who can say, that the purpose of God Almighty in this 
awful catyclysm is not to sweep from the thrones of Europe 
and from the earth the autocratic power of royalty and plant 
in its stead the sovereignty of the people. 

Even England, that is really more responsive to the will 
of the people in the enactment of her laws than we are, has 
been forced to pass by every lord and duke and prince in the 
kingdom and lay her hand upon the most noted and emphatic 
representative of the common people in the empire and place 
him at the helm. 

If all this is the price in the plan of God Almighty to pay 
for the emancipation of the human race, who can say the 
expenditure is too great? 

I would not undertake to say, that it makes any great 
amount of difference with the Creator whether a man lives 
seventy-five years or dies when he is twenty-five years of age, 
just so he fulfills his mission in this world. In the onward 
sweep of eternity the difference is but a swing of the pendulum. 
The main thing with God is, and the main thing with you and 



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me is: How are we going to act and deport ourselves the few 
years we are permitted to sojourn here? 

It is not in length of days nor years, in God's plan, that we 
measure our lives, but in noble deeds and right living. It 
often happens that man accomplishes a great deal more in 
his death than he does in his life. 

Neither can I understand that it is any great concern to a 
merciful God whether his creature dies with a bullet hole 
through his body or by a germ in his duodenum. Some die 
one way; and some die another. They all die, some sooner 
and some later. 

At any rate, in the providence of God, we are forced into 
this mighty conflict. 

The Roman chief captain said to Paul, I bought my freedom 
at great cost. Paul said to the Roman captain, with some- 
thing of the spirit of superiority, I was free born. The greater 
burden, the greater obligation was on the apostle. 

Your ancestors and mine bought their freedom with a 
great price. But we were born free. It is to us a precious 
legacy. Shall we surrender it without a struggle? Can it 
be said that the patriots of '76 threw off the yoke of oppres- 
sion and fought through fire and blood to freedom; and that 
we are the degenerate sons of noble sires and are willing to 
submit to the humiliation and oppression of a foreign prince 
and arrogant potentate, and surrender those rights which the 
Imperial German Government itself admits are ours, and of 
right ought to be ours, if we only have the manhood and 
spirit to maintain them. 

And what is America willing to contribute to the cause of 
freedom? What are we willing to pay for our heritage? 

We shall see. Germany shall see. The world shall see. 

May God in his mercy and might continue to be with us 
as we battle for the principles of freedom and the cause of 
humanity. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

■HP. 



